Hidden Maya Civilization Revealed Beneath Guatemala's Jungle Canopy

 

 

More than 61,000 ancient Maya structuresfrom large pyramids to single houseswere lurking beneath the dense jungle canopy in Guatemala, revealing clues about the ancient culture's farming practices, infrastructure, politics and economy, a new aerial survey has revealed.

The Guatemalan jungle is thick and challenging to explore, so researchers mapped the terrain with the help of a technology known as light detection and ranging, or lidar. The lidar images were captured during aerial surveys of the Maya lowland, a region spanning more than 810 square miles (2,100 square kilometers).

"Since lidar technology is able to pierce through thick forest canopy and map features on the Earth's surface, it can be used to produce ground maps that enable us to identify human-made features on the ground, such as walls, roads or buildings," Marcello Canuto, director of the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans, said in a statement.

The aerial lidar survey covered 12 separate areas in Petén, Guatemala, and included both rural and urban Maya settlements. After analyzing the imageswhich included isolated houses, large palaces, ceremonial centers and pyramidsthe researchers determined that up to 11 million people lived in the Maya lowlands during the late Classic period, from A.D. 650 to 800. This number is consistent with previous calculations, the researchers noted in the study, which was published online Friday (Sept. 28) in the journal Science.

It would have required a massive agricultural effort to sustain such a big population, the researchers said. So, it was no surprise when the lidar survey revealed that much of the wetlands in the area were heavily modified for farming, the researchers said.

In all, the surveys revealed about 140 square miles (362 square km) of terraces and other modified agricultural land, as well as another 368 square miles (952 square km) of farmland.

In addition, the lidar analysis uncovered 40 square miles (110 square km) of roadway networks within and between faraway cities and towns, some of which were heavily fortified. This finding highlighted the links between the Maya's hinterlands and urban centers, the researchers said.

"Seen as a whole, terraces and irrigation channels, reservoirs, fortifications, and causeways reveal an astonishing amount of land modification done by the Maya over their entire landscape on a scale previously unimaginable," Francisco Estrada-Belli, a research assistant professor of anthropology at Tulane University and director of the Holmul Archaeological Project, said in the statement.

However, even though the lidar evaluation revealed so many previously unknown structures, researchers described it as a complement to, but not a replacement for, traditional archaeology. In a perspective article on the new research published in the same journal, Anabel Ford, an adjunct professor of archaeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Sherman Horn, a visiting professor of archaeology at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, wrote that even with lidar, "boots on the ground" would always be needed.

 

 

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Vocabulary :

1. lurking /adjective : remaining hidden so as to wait in ambush.

"the trumpet fish is a lurking predator"

2. li·dar /noun : a detection system which works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser.

3. fortified /adjective : provided with defensive works as protection against attack.

4. irrigation /noun : the supply of water to land or crops to help growth, typically by means of Channels

5. for·ti·fi·ca·tion /noun :a defensive wall or other reinforcement built to strengthen a place against attack

6. cause·way /noun : a raised road or track across low or wet ground

7. ad·junct /adjective : connected or added to something, typically in an auxiliary way.

 

Questions :

1.The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)

2. Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?

3. What does "lidar" stand for, and how does it work?

4. What kinds of structures did researchers find using lidar? What does this tell you about the Maya?

5. How does this scientific discovery help historians think about the Maya? Did it prove or disprove previous theories about the region and its people? Besides science, what other subjects might help someone better understand history? Explain.

6. In the article, it says that lidar is no substitute for "boots on the ground." What does that mean? Do you think this statement is true? Why or why not?

7. If you could use lidar to see any place in the world from a different perspective, where would it be? What would you hope to discover?